BIGGEST Balls up to date!, what’s your biggest fail?

LeeH · Jul 26, 2024

I hopped my kettle sour last week on the first boil, no idea why, I’ve made a few so know the process well.

Surprise surprise it didn’t sour and the first ever batch that has gone down the drain.

Druss · Jul 26, 2024

Oh, I had a spectacular one recently.

I think it was around mid May, I decided to make a load of sparkling melomel, I'd already brewed a few gallons and instead of pasteurising and bottling as I normally would, I just went ahead and back sweetened in beer bottles before capping and putting it all in my shed.

I'd forgotten all about it, there was around fifty (500ml, glass) bottles in total, note I said was.

Cut to a couple of weeks ago, sitting in the living room watching TV with swmbo, we heard an almighty boom and the unmistakable sound of tinkling glass. I didn't think much of it, our neighbours are often up to shenanigans so I just chalked it up to that.

Went into the shed the next day to sort some other brewing stuff out and found it wall to wall covered in shattered glass and the unmistakable smell of spilled booze.

In my haste to both back sweeten and prime, I'd added 25g of honey to each 500ml bottle...I've been brewing for 30 years, I really should have known better!

Two weeks on and I'm still finding chunks of glass here and there

marshbrewer · Jul 27, 2024

I recently lovingly brewed a historical Aussie stout from Peter Symons. Bulk aged it. Smelt lovely.

Sanitised a clean cornie with Videne. Racked the stout into the cornie with priming. Looking forward to this.

Why is my sanitiser jug empty? Oh......

Tony Dyer · Aug 6, 2024

marshbrewer said:
I recently lovingly brewed a historical Aussie stout from Peter Symons. Bulk aged it. Smelt lovely.

Sanitised a clean cornie with Videne. Racked the stout into the cornie with priming. Looking forward to this.

Why is my sanitiser jug empty? Oh......

A while ago I had a nice Bohemian Pilsener that I'd fermented in the cellar (cool) for 2 weeks and then racked off to mature in the fridge for 6 weeks. So far so good. I then bottled about 24 x 500ml bottles. Nice. I had a little left in the transfer vessel so I gave it a taste - luckily. It tasted a bit odd - kind of soapy and salty - which was when I realised that I'd primed the brew with sanitiser instead of priming sugar. Down the drain it went. I'm more careful with my white powders now.

Also, my last brew, I put water and grain for my Christmas Beast into my Brewzilla only to realise that I'd forgotten the malt tube. I didn't trust the pump not to clog with allthat unfiltered malt sloshing around, not to mention the problems I would have had sparging so I had to pour it all out and clean out the BZ before starting the mash again.

Rodcx500z · Aug 6, 2024

Bin there done that

Tony Dyer said:
I'd forgotten the malt tube. I didn't trust the pump not to clog with allthat unfiltered malt sloshing around, not to mention the problems I would ha

micklupulo · Aug 10, 2024

Not sure yet how this ranks on a failure scale. It is extract based but I first of all steeped 200gms of dextrin which I then boiled with challenger then added citra hops later. Been bottled a month now and looks like it will never clear. Not sure why. Will it clear in time and in the meantime will it give me the screamers? Tastes OK!

prog99 · Aug 10, 2024

I made a purple neipa. Classic oxidisation, there’s a post somewhere on here of it.

micklupulo · Aug 11, 2024

micklupulo said:
Not sure yet how this ranks on a failure scale. It is extract based but I first of all steeped 200gms of dextrin which I then boiled with challenger then added citra hops later. Been bottled a month now and looks like it will never clear. Not sure why. Will it clear in time and in the meantime will it give me the screamers? Tastes OK!View attachment 102766

Does anyone have any idea why this has happened and if so whether it will eventually clear? I should add that I used one clear bottle which has cleared about an inch from the top (in four weeks).

nickjdavis · Oct 23, 2024

Forgetting to remove the stir bar from the yeast starter flask before pitching the yeast.

Not a problem normally....I have plenty of stir bars.

But then....

Racking off the trub from the conical before bottling in a couple of days time, and finding that I couldn't close the butterfly valve because said stir bar was jamming it open, resulting in 25L of a fairly tasty red ale self dispensing inside my brew fridge and out over the garage floor.

WillFrites · Oct 23, 2024

Leaving a LME kit in the fermentation vessel for months and months. Saying each day off.....I really must bottle it. Finally got around to it.....smelt, looked and tasted bad.
Still bottled it.
Opened a bottle.....23 litres thrown away!

RichK · Oct 24, 2024

Before I understood the concept of alpha acids in hops, I used ~40g of Admiral (it was cheap in LHBS) instead of ~40g of Goldings in a batch of stout.

The couple of bottles I put on one side for about 4 years before opening tasted pretty good though!

Stu · Oct 24, 2024

Following on from the above, I think mine was deciding that you really couldn't put too many hops in a beer and that you could put them in whenever you liked.

So I ended up with a whole pile of US hops. Some I threw in during the boil and the rest I put in the whirlpool.
Usual stuff - Liberty, Mosaic, Citra and Sabro.

It was bloody horrible. Someone told me that bad beer can get better. I kept it for a year. Still tasted horrible.

On the flip side, I made a Duvel clone that came out horrid. Tried a couple of months later and it was much improved but still not great.
I tried some the other day, 3 months in and it's pretty drinkable. I reckon in another 2 or 3 months time, it'll be a decent drink.

gavp1979 · Oct 27, 2024

Putting my spunding valve on the beer post instead of the gas post which resulted in my garage being flooded by my Christmas stout when fermentation kicked off

Darren Jeory · Nov 3, 2024

Monkhouse said:
So I haven’t brewed since December last year since I’ve been busy fixing up my daughter’s bedroom (big job zero spare time) so naturally I was very excited about my brewday today.
I did an over night mash for a Belgian golden strong and got up at 5am to start recirc, first runnings and sparge. It was cold in the house so whilst the wort was draining off into the boiler I went to make up a fire before the family got up ready for school.
Came back after 10 minutes and looked in the mash tun which seemed empty but looking at the boiler I couldn’t understand why the wort wasn’t up past the valve….

Then my eyes were drawn to the kitchen floor in front of the boiler…I’d left the boiler valve open without realising.
Spent the next hour cleaning up the sticky floor and trying my hardest to figure out how much fresh grain to dump on top of the 8.5kg spent(ish) grain that was already in the tun. In the end I went for another 6kg of grain with another 24l water and re mashed for an hour then drained that off into the boiler.
I’m basically running blind though right now plus I’d planned on doing another full batch (comet pale ale) straight after the Belgian. Not willing to change my plans so I’m just going for it and trying to turn a major balls up into a good double brew day!

My biggest balls up was a costly one. I was trying to buy a brew system and for some reason (either brexit or COVID) Klarstein were struggling to supply to the UK market.

Me being a smart **** thought "I don't need one. I'll buy a 30L tea urn to mash and boil in" the mash always under performed by approx 50% and the stupid bloody thing wouldn't hold a boil!!! £100 down the toilet!! :)

peterpiper · Nov 3, 2024

Tony Dyer said:
A while ago I had a nice Bohemian Pilsener that I'd fermented in the cellar (cool) for 2 weeks and then racked off to mature in the fridge for 6 weeks. So far so good. I then bottled about 24 x 500ml bottles. Nice. I had a little left in the transfer vessel so I gave it a taste - luckily. It tasted a bit odd - kind of soapy and salty - which was when I realised that I'd primed the brew with sanitiser instead of priming sugar. Down the drain it went. I'm more careful with my white powders now.

Also, my last brew, I put water and grain for my Christmas Beast into my Brewzilla only to realise that I'd forgotten the malt tube. I didn't trust the pump not to clog with allthat unfiltered malt sloshing around, not to mention the problems I would have had sparging so I had to pour it all out and clean out the BZ before starting the mash again.

Did exactly the same, forgot malt pipe (BZ 4), last month. When brewing Rongoteus (god of rye), beer.
Was about to drain off, as you did. But brew day buddy, convinced me to just proceed. Glad I did, as it worked really well.
It ended up, with my being able to do, my first 'floating sparge'. Pumping out, into holding bin, at same rate as sparge water was being added. To maintain a floating malt bed, as long as possible.
It added just a little time. While BZ was being emptied & cleaned, and while reheating system.

If I had 2x Brewzillas, I'd do a floating sparge, every time.

Bitter_Dave · Nov 4, 2024

I made loads of cock ups back when I was AG brewing, but the one that sticks in my mind was from when I was brewing a simple beer kit a year or so ago. I was rinsing residual malt extract from the can with boiling water and spilt it on my hand. I was using some kind of dish cloth, but clearly not with enough care. Sugary boiling liquids really hurt, and hurt for a long time! It was not a pretty sight and after a number of days I ended up having to get some kind of ointment from the pharmacy because it didn't seem to be getting any better! I am so careful now!

peterpiper · Nov 8, 2024

Bitter_Dave said:
I made loads of cock ups back when I was AG brewing, but the one that sticks in my mind was from when I was brewing a simple beer kit a year or so ago. I was rinsing residual malt extract from the can with boiling water and spilt it on my hand. I was using some kind of dish cloth, but clearly not with enough care. Sugary boiling liquids really hurt, and hurt for a long time! It was not a pretty sight and after a number of days I ended up having to get some kind of ointment from the pharmacy because it didn't seem to be getting any better! I am so careful now!

Sounds painfull.

I wear a rubber glove, when rinsing out malt cans. But still need to be carefull, not to end up pouring boiling water into glove, which would be worse than over bare hand.
A person died, quite a few years back now, when a spilt pan of boiling water landed mostly in his wellies!

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